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DELIVERED AT 



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Hon. I. C. PARKER. 



OF SAINT JOSEPH, MISSOURI, 



JULY 4, A. D. 1871. 




P-ablished by Reqnest. 



SAINT JOSEPH, MO. 

PRINTED BY THE SAINT JOSEPH STEAM PRINTING COMPANY 
1871. 



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ADDEESS. 



Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land, and unto all the 
inhabitants thereof. — Lev. xxv. — 10. 



Ladies and Gentlemen : / 

We read that after the children of Israel had escaped from 
the most galling bondage in Egypt, and after the Lord of hosts 
had triumphed gloriously over those who despised the sentiment 
" that all men are created free and equal, " and the horse and 
rider had been thrown into the sea, and after right had pre- 
vailed over might in the very morning of the world, and those 
who had escaped from the thraldom of the Egyptian task 
masters had sung th^ij; songs of joy on the banks of their 
deliverance, the great law giver Moses received from the Deity, 
not only that higher law upon which is based the Christian's 
faith, but also that code which all civilized nations have 
directly, or indirectly recognized as the one by which the 
world can be governed. It was then that the command which 
I have read to you, came pure and spotless from the mouth of 
God himself, when he spoke to Moses from amidst the fire and 
smoke and awful thunders of Sinai, commanding him to " hallow 
the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land, 
and unto all the inhabitants thereof. " 

We in this age of the world fully recognise the fact that 
the principle of this command has its seat and center in the 
mind of the Deity, and its mission is the harmony of the 
universe, and because it became known of men as being the 



will of God, you and I, together with the people of this 
whole land, in obedience to what has become a time honored 
custom, not only here but wherever may be found Americans, 
and wherever floats the flag of the free, and also in obedience 
to a sense of patriotic duty, quit the field and the anvil, the 
workshop and the counter, the busy marts of commerce and 
the flamifig forge, the noise and bustle and heat of the city, as 
well as the quiet of the country home, to assemble around the 
altars of American liberty, and place thereon the oblations of 
our faith in " a government of the people, by the people and 
for the people, " pledging our troth anew to those eternal rights 
of man proclaimed by the fathers, when they ninety-five years 
ago to-day hurled in the very face of despotism the immortal 
declaration : " We hold these truths to be self-evident that all 
men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator 
with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness ; that to secure those rights 
governments are instituted among men, deriving their just 
powers from the consent of the governed. " 

We have often been told that history repeats itself; and I 
was forcibly struck with the truth of this, M^hen a few weeks 
ago I stood within the walls of Indej)endence Hall, in Phila- 
delphia, and gazed upon the old liberty bell, now preserved 
within that sacred temple of American liberty as a priceless 
national heirloom. It will be remembered that the Conti- 
nental Congress, during the time of its deliberations upon the 
Declaration which has been read to you to-day, sat with closed 
doors. It had been engaged several days in the discussion of 
this measure, which they of that day believed if adopted would 
change the fate of a continent, and which we now believe will 
in time revolutionize the world. On the night of the third of 
July, 1776, it was noised abroad in the city of Philadelphia 
that on the morning of the fourth of July the final action of 
Congress would be taken on the Declaration. Thousands of 
anxious people had assembled in the street and public square 
in front of the hall. All hearts in that assembly and through- 



out the colonies, were throbbing with anxiety. All minds 
were intent upon one thought : "What would Congress do?" 
was passed from lip to lip, of that immense throng. The old 
bellman was at his post in the belfry. A little boy had been 
placed beneath him to give him the signal when to ring. The 
morning sun was shining brightly. The assembled throng 
looked upon it as a good omen, being symbolic of the new 
risen sun of independence even then discernable in the political 
heavens. The morning wore on apace. Finally the Declara- 
tion was adopted, and the little boy was seen to claj) his hands 
and heard by the multitude below to shout at the top of his 
voice to the old bellman, "ring! ring! ring!" The old man 
did ring, and a nation was born, and the birthday of that 
nation we all over this land, from where the morning sun first 
kisses the blue waves of the Atlantic to where he sinks to rest 
beneath the silvery waters of the Pacific, this day celebrate. 
The old man did ring, and when he did so, he rang out the 
death knell of despotism and human slavery, and rang in the 
new era wherein liberty to all the people was to be the rule, 
and oppression the exception. The old man did ring, and the 
clear notes of that bell were sweet music to the ears of the 
patriot fathers assembled below, who stood ready to pledge 
their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, as those 
within its hallowed walls had already done, to maintain the 
eternal rights of man. The ringing of that bell carried glad 
tidings of great joy to the colonists who were in arms every 
where, and as its sweet notes were borne across the fertile slopes 
of the old Keystone state, the people caught the sound and 
rejoiced ; and as they heard its ringing tones wafted upon the 
breeze down in the beautiful valleys of Virginia, her patriot 
sons and daughters met its notes with shouts of rejoicing ; and 
the sound of that ringing was greeted with the cheers of those 
in the old Bay state, who had seen Warren give uj) his young 
life as a Holocaust to liberty at Bunker Hill ; and those who 
had seen the sons of free America butchered by the minions of 
despotism at Lexington ; and they were heard amid the swamps 



of the Carolinas, there increasing the patriotic devotion of 
Sumpter's and Marion's men ; and we can almost imagine that 
this proclamation of liberty as it was borne upon the wings of 
the wind was caught up by the angels of heaven, and as it 
mingled with their sweet songs of rejoicing, was carried back 
to the throne of that God, who, thousands of years before, had 
said, upon a mountain top, standing out upon the sands of the 
desert of Arabia : " Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, 
and unto all the inhabitants thereof." 

This old bell has a history. It was imported from England 
in 1752, for the state house of Pennsylvania, but having met 
with some accident in the trial ringing, after it was landed, it 
lost its tone, and had to be re-cast. This was done under the 
direction of Isaac Norris, Esq., then speaker of the Colonial 
Assembly. This was twenty-three years before it proclaimed 
to the people of America the Declaration of Independence; 
and strange as it may seem, at this time was placed upon it the 
remarkable motto so prophetic of its future use, " Proclaim 
liberty throughout all the land, and unto all the inhabitants 
thereof. " This declaration or command which emanated from 
God, was carried by the flight of time down through the ages until 
it was caught up and placed in letters of iron, thereby indi- 
cating its strength and power over the minds of the children of 
men, upon the old bell, which will stand as a monument to 
liberty as lasting as time, and as eternal as the everlasting hills. 
Truly, history does repeat itself. This bell became useless 
after it had done its work of telling the people of the colonies, 
and through them the nations of the earth, that a new nation 
had been born among them, and was already knocking at the 
doors of despotism for recognition — a nation whose children 
were free. It had one mission to perform, and when that was 
done its work was accomplished. It was then to be placed 
with the sword of Washington, the staff of Franklin, and the 
pen of Jefferson, and the bullet-torn and blood-stained battle- 
flags of the nation, all sacred archives of a government whose 
every citizen is a peer of his fellow. 



No British forge was pure enough to send forth metal 
that would sound the key note to American Liberty ; therefore 
the bell had to be re-cast in this country. The soil of Briton 
was so cursed by the tread of despotism that no British mine 
could send forth from its bowels ore sufficiently pure to make a 
bell that would ring out the chime of " Liberty and Union, one 
and forever inseparable/' therefore it had to be purified in a fur- 
nace the fires of which were lit up by the hands of men who would 
be free. No British workmen sufficiently understand the prin- 
ciples of Liberty, to make the tongue of that bell, therefore it 
had to be modeled by the strong right arm of an American 
Freeman. When we consider all of these things, and that 
this motto was placed upon it twenty-three years 'before it was 
destined to obey the command of Him, who doeth all things 
well, by proclaiming liberty throughout all the land, and unto 
all the inhabitants thereof, and long before any one in the 
Colonies had even dreamed of Independence, we can truly say 
that he who does not recognize the finger of God in this work, 
must most certainly be forgetful of the fact that he alone holds 
in the hollow of his hand the destiny of nations ; marking 
out and controlling that destiny with the same unerring cer- 
tainty with which the Star of Bethlehem guided the wise men 
of the East to the lowly cradle of Him who became as man 
that the children of men might be free. 

It can truly be said that it is well for us, upon the annual 
return of this, our National Anniversary, to hang our banners 
on the outer wall, to forget all political differences for the time 
being; sink the partizan in the patriot, and join hands around 
our country's altar. Here we can ponder over the trials and 
sacrifices endured by the officers and soldiers of the Continental 
army who achieved our Independence. We can reflect over 
the terrible dangers which were incurred by the brave, and 
good men who framed and adopted the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence which brought forth upon this Continent a new nation, 
conceived in liberty and dedicated to the idea that all men are 
created equal. 



All nations have had, and now have their national holidays. 
Greece had her Olympic games ; Rome could degrade her name, 
tarnish her great achievements, and blacken her pages in the 
world's history, and desecrate the soil of her country by caus- 
ing to be poured out the blood of her Gladiators heartlessly 
butchered, to make a holiday for her people. 

The aristocracy of modern Europe can greet with joy the 
annual return of the day upon which some Prince or Princess 
was born ; the representative of some dynasty which is sus- 
tained in the interest of despotism, which would fetter even 
tighter with the chains of slavery, the rights of the people, 
which feeds and*fattens upon the substance of that people, and 
then looks with scorn and contempt, mingled with a self- 
rif^hteous indignation upon the idea that they are capable of 
self government. But the celebration of the great anniversary 
festival of this nation, and of the world, was left in the provi- 
dence of God, to the children of free America who commem- 
orate, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty, this day of 
deliverance — the most memorable epoch recorded in the annals 
of the world's history. 

John Adams, in his letter of July 3d, 1776, to Mrs. 
Adams, said " this day ought to be solemnized with pomp, and 
parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, balls, bonfires and 
illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from 
this time forward forevermore." 

How well do we continue to fulfil the wish of Mr. Adams, 
one of the fathers who, four score and fifteen years ago to-day 
planted in a soil dedicated by God to freedom, the tree of 
liberty, which in the march of time will shelter the nations of 
the earth, and beneath the branches of which, all people can 
seek safety from the pitiless frowns of despotism, and can 
plant themselves upon the grand principles of our Amer- 
ican Declaration of freedom, and defy the power of tyrants 
and mock to scorn the puny efforts of those who wield the 
sceptre of power for the aggrandizement of the few, and not 
so as to confer the blessings of life, liberty and property upon 



the many. At the time this tree of liberty was planted by 
those who were the nation's founders, the soil had already been 
prepared to receive it, by its being purified by the blood of 
those patriots of 1776, who had already fallen in the struggle 
for freedom, and who had preferred death in the face of the 
foe in defence of human rights, rather than life, with civil 
degradation, and political slavery. When this declaration was 
proclaimed, the British Parliament had passed the memorable 
stamp act. This act, under the influence of such men as Lord 
(kmden, who had declared in the British Parliament that 
" Taxation and representation were inseparably united ; God 
hath joined them, and no British Parliament could put them 
asunder," after a short time had been repealed. When this 
occurred, there was great rejoicing throughout the Colonies, 
for they thought they saw a disposition manifested by the 
mother country to harmonize their differences, and they had 
not even yet been weaned from their old affection for the land 
of their forefathers, nor had they ceased to glory in the British 
name. But their joy was of short duration, for in a little more 
than a year from the re})eal of the stamp act, another act was 
j)assed by Parliament, imposing duties upon all tin, paper, 
glass, paints, and lead that should be imported into the Colo- 
nies. This was an avowed attempt to raise revenue, though in 
form, the bill was like other acts, for the regulation of trade, 
and on this account, it was hoped it would escape censure. 

But the principle first advanced by James Otis, was now 
generally adopted by the Colonies — that revenue bills, under 
the forms of regulations of trade violated their rights quite as 
much as direct taxation. Thus the flame of opposition was 
kindled anew, and raged as hotly as ever. Non-importation 
was an obvious and legal means of escaping these taxes, and 
extensive combinations were formed to refrain from the use, 
not only of the taxed articles, but as far as possible of all 
other British commodities. Under the influence of this senti- 
ment, the patriots of Massachusetts had made a tea pot of 
Boston harbor. But little revenue did the British Government 



8 

derive from this act. The cause of the Colonies even then 
found sympathy among those who loved liberty on the Conti- 
nent of Europe, and even in the British Parliament it was 
embraced by the great orator and statesman, the elder Pitt, 
and such lovers of liberty as Conway, and Col. Barri, and 
Lord Capiden. They knew it was not an objection to the pay- 
ment of the tax that caused resistance on the part of the 
Colonies, but it was because they claimed all the privileges of 
British subjects, and especially that of not being taxed without 
their own consent. In other words, they claimed a voice in 
making the laws by which they were to be governed. They 
claimed that God and nature intended they should enjoy the 
right to liberty as regulated by law. 

They asserted the great principle, that man is capable of 
self government. The colonies had now nothing to expect but 
war, for they well knew that no grand principle had ever been 
established until the pathway of its progress had been paved 
with human bones, and moistened with human blood. 

The firing of the king's troops upon the people on Lex- 
ington common, April 18, 1775, rang the alarm bell of the 
revolution. Then the red flames of war shot down their lurid 
glare from every hillside and mountain top throughout the 
colonies. The valleys resounded to the tramp of armed men. 
The first gun in the grand war for liberty had been fired. The 
plow was left standing in the furrow — the hammer upon the 
anvil — the plane upon the bench ; the lawyer's office was 
closed ; the man of God quit the sacred desk for the field of 
strife; the merchant left his counter; all hastened to join 
the armies of the colonies, commanded by Washington, to 
strike a blow in the good cause in behalf of the right against 
the tyrant who sought to reduce to a state of vassalage, men 
who came to America that they might be free. Large British 
armies were brought across the sea to bring into submission 
the rebellious subjects of Great Britain, as they were called. 
In May, 1775, the battle of Bunker Hill was fought. The 
colonies had tasted of the terrors of war, yet they faltered not. 



They felt that God was just, and that justice would yet triumph. 
They knew the race was not always to the swift, nor the battle 
to the strong ; but to the cause which had the happiness and 
welfare of man upon its side. They knew what liberty meant, 
for they had already drunk at its fountain, but never did they 
appreciate its full meaning until its key note was sounded, when 
heir representatives in Congress assembled, proclaimed that 
<he colonies were, and of right ought to be, free and independ- 
nit among the nations of the earth. When this declaration 
.vas signed they gathered new strength ; they were inspired with 
lew hopes for the future. They saw for the first time, perhaps, 
:he possibility of a great government where liberty, regulated 
jy law, would be guaranteed to all, even the humblest of its 
jitizens, and where each freeman would wield a weapon more 
potent than the power of kings, 

" A weapon that comes down as still 

As snow flakes fell upon the sod, 
But executes a freeman's will, 

As lightning does the will of God. 
And from its force nor doors nor locks 

Can shield you! 'tis the ballot box. " 

1 The colonies then had to meet the stern and terrible realities 
^of war. They were beaten by the trained legions of Britain, 
;)on many bloody fields, yet they faltered not. Their ranks were 
thinned by the ravages of war, yet they were none the less 
hopeful. The sufi'erings of that continental army can never be 
jiescribed by human tongue nor human pen. Nor was all this 
suifering and all these sacrifices borne by the fathers of the 
revolution alone, but our good revolutionary mothers were equal 
participants in the great strviggle for liberty with their fathers, 
husbands, brothers and sons. One of these mothers had sent 
six sons to the war, and when news was brought back that two 
of them had been slain in battle, she replied : " I would 
rather all had been killed in battle than that one should come 
back to me a coward. " It will always be so with the women 
of America. They are ever ready to imitate not only in deeds 
denoting courage, but also in works indicating charity, the 
sainted mother of the Savior of the world who stood at His 



10 

grave, and when even Apostles trembled and were afraid, she 
was brave. At the time of this great war for independence, 
the window sash were made of lead, and our revolutionary 
mothers took the windows out of their houses and melted the 
leaden sash and moulded them into bullets for their sons in the 
continental army. They tore up their garments for bandages, 
and sent them away to the hospitals. They picked old rags to 
pieces making lint for the wounded until their finger ends were 
bleeding. They knit stockings for the suffering heroes who 
yet rallied around Washington in his winter's camp at Valley 
Forge, his men barefooted, and leaving their bloody footprints 
as they walked in the snow, and thinking of the suffierings of 
these men their eyes were blinded with weeping, and tear-drops 
fell glistening on their knitting needles. Their souls went out 
in compassionate sympathy for those suffering heroes who amid 
the storm, and snow, and ice of a terrible December night, were 
led by Washington across the Delaware. On bended knees 
our patriotic revolutionary mothers breathed to the Throne of 
Grace heart earnest petitions for God's blessing, and protection 
to the suffering soldier boys in camp or hospital, while the 
earnest, brave men of that trying period in our history, with 
" In God we trust, " as their motto, kept on hurling manly 
blows against the cohorts of despotism. 

While the men fought, the women prayed and worked, until 
victory perched upon our standard when General Burgoyne 
who commanded an army of ten thousand men, and who was 
instructed to force his way down Lake Champlain, then cross 
to Albany and descend the Hudson and join the British forces 
at New York, was cut short in his career by being captured, 
with his whole army, by General Gates, at Saratoga, in 1777. 
Here the colonies, with God and right upon their side, humbled 
in the dust " a power to which, for the purposes of foreign con- 
quest and subjugation, Rome in the height of her glory, is not 
to be compared, a power which has dotted over the surface of 
the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose 
morning drum beat, following the sun and keeping company 



11 

with the hours, encircles the whole earth with one continuous and 
unbroken strain of the martial airs of England. " Battle after 
battle was fought until the power of the Briton was broken forever 
in America by the surrender of Lord Coruwallis, at Yorktown. 
There the British lion was compelled to take his paw from the 
pure form of the goddess of American liberty. There the 
flag of the Briton was forever furled in this country, and in its 
stead was unfurled " the banner of the free. " There the 
power which had invoked to its aid against those who were 
but contending for what belonged to them, the tomahawk and 
scalping knife of the merciless savage, and which called in the 
assistance of the foreign mercenary, was beaten back, and the 
sons of liberty then saw the full fruition of all their toils and 
bloody sacrifices. Then it was shown to the world that he who 
fought for the right was fighting in a bright field where every 
sword caught some beams of glory, and every bayonet flashed 
forth some sentiment of liberty. 

Then the world saw that he who fought for freedom, for 
God, and his native land could overcome him who went to 
battle beneath the cool and poiionous shade of aristocracy, with 
no honors to await his daring, his life of danger and hardship, 
uncheered by hope, and his death unnoticed. 

The God of battles at last smiled on the good cause. 
Great Britain, after seven years of unrelenting warfare, saw 
that her power was wasted in vain. She had seen her armies, 
one after another melt away as mist before the morning sun. 
One defeat after another increased her shame and disaster. 
She was involved in bloody wars on the Continent of Europe. 
Negotiations for peace were therefore commenced by her, with 
the American Commissioners at Paris, and a provisional treaty 
was signed November 30th, 1782. 

This peace came not too soon for exhausted and bleeding 
America. The people were in a state of the most absolute 
poverty. The sufferings of the officers and men of the army 
were great ; they saw nothing but penury and want staring 
them in the face, when they were disbanded and returned to 



12 

their homes, made desolate by the ravages of war. There 
were those ever ready to sow the seeds of discord, and nothing 
but the firmness, moderation and wisdom of him who was " first 
in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, " 
saved the nation from ruin. At the close of the war, the Col- 
onies were burdened with a heavy debt, of which they had 
not the means of even paying the interest ; the public credit 
was annihilated ; commerce and manufactories were in a torpid 
condition, and the country was almost without a Government. 
During the greater part of the struggle. Congress had 
possessed no authority but what was tacitly granted to it, from 
the necessity of the case. The individual States were unwill- 
ing to give up any of that independence which they were 
striving to vindicate against a foreign power. They 
claimed complete sovereignty, and were unwilling to appear 
only as the members of a Confederacy, under the control of a 
Central Government. In 1777 a plan of union had been 
framed and adopted in Congress after two years' discussion, 
not as the best that could be imagined, or as adapted to all 
exigencies, but as the only one suited to existing circumstances, 
or at all likely to be adopted. It was not to go into effect 
until it was ratified by all the States, and only four of them 
could be induced at first, to adopt it. Slowly and reluctantly 
the others gave in their adhesion ; the consent of New Jersey 
and Delaware not being obtained till 1779, and that of Mary- 
land, not until 1781, when at last the final sanction of the 
articles of Confederation as they were called, was joyfully 
announced by Congress. But the Union thus effected, was 
very inadequate to the ends in view. It did not establish a 
Central Government; it was only a league of several inde- 
pendent sovereignties. The Congress of the nation, under 
this confederation, had no power but to recommend measures — 
it could not enforce them — and it was left to the States to obey 
the recommendations or not, at their pleasure. It was a Gov- 
ernment of influence, and not of power, if indeed influence 
can be called government; but it was not one under which 



13 

the lives, liberties and property of the governed could be 
secure. It soon became manifest that it would become neces- 
sary to establish a Government capable of exerting more 
power toward those who might be unwilling to obey its 
laws. The establishment of our Union by the adoption of 
that Magna Charta of American Liberty ; the Constitution 
of the United States was the embodiment of that sentiment. 
Unionism meant a single nation. 

The adoption of the Constitution was the establishment of 
that Unionism, therefore the adoption of the Federal Consti- 
tution was the creation of The Nation. This was the object 
of the fathers when they in their preamble to that instrument 
declared, " We, the people of the United States, in order to 
form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic 
tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the 
general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves 
and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of 
the United States of America." Here the power of the people 
was recognized ; here the fact that this was a " Government of 
the people, by the people, and for the people, was made mani- 
fest." Very many persons at the time of the adoption of the 
Constitution, objected to it because they believed that it 
deprived the States of too much power; but when we reflect 
upon the object of Government, we must conclude, and 
especially after our experience in this country, that this power 
was properly lodged in the Government of United States, 
rather than in those of the States. 

Under our present system, we can behold the great dome 
of the Union rising and expanding to Heaven ; extending over 
all the States, but not resting on them for existence or support. 
At the time of the treaty of peace between the Colonies and 
England, the limits of the Republic extended from the great 
lakes to the 31st degree of latitude, and from the Atlantic to the 
middle channel of the Mississippi river. Since then, the 
limits of the Union have been enlarged and fixed by the 
treaties of cession in 1803 with Napoleon, as first Consul of the 



14 

French Republic ; that of 1819 with Spain ; by the admission in 
1846 of Texas; by the treaty of limits of that year with Great 
Britain, fixing the dividing line between the then Territory of 
Oregon and the British Possessions; by the treaties of 1848 
and 1853 with Mexico, and the treaty of 1867 with Alexander 
IT, the Emperor of all the Russias. By these treaties of 
cession the area of the United States of America has been 
increased eight times its original extent, covering nearly 
4,000,000 of square miles of Territory. Much of this Terri- 
tory was then a howling wilderness, or an unbroken waste, 
inhabited by wild beasts, and scarcely less savage Indians. 
But by the energy of American freemen, that wilderness has 
been made to rejoice, and that unbroken waste to blossom as 
the rose. No era in the history of the world presents such 
evidences of the march of empire ; of the material develop- 
ment of a country, and the intellectual, social and moral 
advancement of its people, as does ours. Truly we have a 
history that is the very miracle of history. Into our young 
life, not yet one hundred years long, are crowded a constella- 
tion of epochs enough to make resplendent with glory whole 
centuries of common years. From thirteen States represented 
by thirteen stars upon our banner, we have increased until the 
constellation representing the grand sisterhood of States covers 
the whole of the Heaven-lit blue of that flag. The colonies 
were weak, and they were looked upon with contempt by the 
despotisms of Europe. 

In the success of our fathers, they saw the success of the 
people, and they knew right well that that success meant their 
ultimate downfall. But how the scene has changed ; there is 
not a power on earth that does not to-day court the favor of 
the Government of the United States. We are now known 
and honored throuo;hout the world. There was a time in the 
history of Rome, when to say " I am a Roman citizen," insured 
personal liberty and protection throughout the then civilized 
world ; but he who can now say " I am an American citizen," 
finds in that sentence a magic power which will protect him 
all around the Globe. 



15 

But a few weeks ago we saw exhibited on a foreign soil the 
respect foreign nations have for our prowess. When Paris was 
in flames ; when a bloody, relentless mob inaugurated a carnival 
of blood, and surged through the streets, sparing neither sex, age 
nor condition ; becoming wild with rage and drunken with the 
blood of its victims, it surged along until it reached the residence 
of the American minister. It saw floating in the breeze above that 
residence, the stars and stripes of our country's banner. There 
it streamed " full high aloft with not a stripe erased nor a star 
obscured," and amid the screams of the murdered victims and 
the infuriated yells of the mob which rolled the bloody waves 
of desolation and murder to the very walls of that residence, a 
still small voice whispered to that mob, " By this sign I seek 
protection," and it fell back in dismay, filled with admiration, 
even while it sought fresh victims and reveled amid its bloody 
orgies, for the mighty nation beyond the waters of the deep blue 
sea, where every citizen is a freeman in the full enjoyment of 
liberty as regulated by law, and whether he stands beneath his 
own roof tree, upon his own soil, or in a foreign land, or upon 
the deck of an American vessel, all he has to do is to invoke 
the aid of that banner, and forty millions of American freemen 
with the principles of personal liberty firmly fixed in their 
minds and firmly imbedded in their hearts, are ready to rush 
to his rescue and throw around him a panoply of protection 
which no nation in this age can penetrate. Truly, we can now 
say, 

" Where breathes the foe but falls before us, 
With freedom's soil beneath our feet and freedom's banner streaming 
o'er us. " 

It is useless for me to dwell upon our progress as a nation, 
because it is written upon every page of our history ; it is 
manifest in every thing we see around us. The confines of 
civilization have step by step moved westward, crossing great 
rivers and vast prairies and plains, and dense forests, and 
ascending mighty mountains until it planted the church and the 
school house, the warp and woof of our American Union, upon 



16 

the golden sands of the Pacific slope, and sent our messengers 

of commerce, spreading their white wings on old ocean's bosom, 

bearing our civilization far away to Asia, telling the people of 

that land that there is a land beyond the sea, where every man 

is free. 

Forty years ago there was not a railroad in the United 

States. Now these arteries of commerce penetrate the whole 

body of the nation, binding it together more closely with bands 

of iron. Twenty-five years ago there was not a telegraph line 

in the United States, but since that time we have spanned old 

ocean and girdled the whole earth with the tamed lightnings 

of heaven, thus bringing all nations together, and more 

directly under the influence of that power which is the grand 

seat of liberty, the United States of America, and teaching 

all nations that sentiment in which we believe, which was 

contained in the declaration thundered forth from amidst 

Mar's hills by Paul, when he said, " of one blood are all nations 

created to dwell on the face of the earth forever. " Great 

cities have sprung up everywhere over this bright and beautiful 

land. Prosperous villages are now dotted over it like the stars 

in the heavens. Its valleys and mountain slopes are covered 

with the homes of freemen. Now 

" Toil swings the ax, and forests bow ; 
The fields break out in radiant bloom. 
Rich harvests smile behind the plow, 
And cities cluster 'round the loom." 

Yet by all this progress, and all this prosperity, the justice 

of God could not be tu;'ned aside. Our fathers sinned in 

permitting slavery to remain in a government whose corner 

stone was human freedom. It was somewhat anomalous for 

them to go to war for the principle that all men are created 

free and equal, and then bring into existence a government 

that tolerated, or indirectly recognized the most accursed system 

of human bondage ever devised by man's cruelty. Perhaps 

they could not do otherwise. They had to make concessions to 

each other to secure unity and harmony among the colonies. 

They knew it was an evil, having in its train all the crimes, 



17 

woes, and miseries that were ever inflicted upon man. Yet 
they hoped to see it placed in course of ultimate extinction by 
the colonies themselves. But God is just, and he punishes the 
sins of nations as well as of men, and we had to wipe out this 
stain upon our national escutcheon in blood. Slavery begot 
aristocracy, a contempt for labor, a disregard for the rights of 
others, and a desire to destroy the government. That desire 
culminated when the rebellion burst upon the land in 1861. 
Then came the final great test to our institutions. 

What patriot can ever forget what he felt when the news 
came over the wires that the hand of treason against our 
common country had struck yonder bright banner from the walls 
of Fort Sumpter ? Can we ever forget the great uprising of the 
loyal nation ; party distinctions forgotten ; party sunk in 
patriotism ? When the great and good Lincoln called for 
troops, and the deep toned voice of the mighty Douglas 
resounded through the land, declaring " that he who was not for 
his country in such an hour, was against his country ; " and all 
the loyal people resolved that the stars and stripes should again 
float over Fort Sumpter ; aye, should greet the morning sun- 
light and kiss the last rays of the setting sun, not only above 
the brick and mortar of Sumpter, but from the Kennebec to 
the Rio Grande, from lake Superior to the gulf of Mexico, the 
symbol of liberty, the shield and protection of American citi- 
zenship. 

We remember when war meetings were held in our little 
country school houses, when the prairies were all alive with 
patriotic ardor ; and the fife and drum were beating up 
recruits in the streets of our towns and cities. Yes, we 
remember all this. Wait until we are old men and women, 
and we will remember these scenes even better than now, and 
around our firesides we will tell our children how a free people, 
their own rulers, living in a government of their own, with a 
common impulse, rallied to their country's defense, in the hour 
of her dire need. 

It was grand ! Something to be remembered always — to 



18 

be proud of always. The rebellion passed over this fair 
land, leaving its mark on each brow, its shadow in each house- 
hold ; but, thank God, when the cohorts of liberty prevailed, 
they eliminated the curse of slavery from our system. They 
raised levery man to the dignity of a freeman. They planted 
that bright, triumphant banner of liberty on every foot of 
American soil. They established forever, if we are but true 
to our ancestry, to ourselves and to posterity, the perpetuity 
of our institutions. They said our great rivers, in all their 
long, majestic course to the sea, should pass through but one 
country. They said oui ocean bounds should be but the 
boundries of one nation. Their deeds have made us truly one 
people, one nation, with one government, one system of laws, 
one and the same country, bound together by a common interest, 
a common ancestry, and united, as I trust we are to be, when the 
scars of the rebellion shall have healed, by the silver cords of 
love and affection for each other. We worship the same God, 
according to the dictates of our own conscience. We ought to 
be all seeking the one common end — the happiness of our 
people and the greatness and glory.lof our land. The down- 
trodden of every race have an interest in us. The oppressed 
of Ireland look upon our flag as they see it streaming from the 
masthead of some merchantman in their harbors across the sea, 
and sigh for a home in the bright land of hope that sends forth 
that banner. The oppressed of England, looking upon it, 
remember the pilgrim fathers flying from English tyranny to 
plant that banner beyond blue ocean's wintry waves, and"wish 
the liberty that banner guarantees may be theirs too. The 
Italian refugee hails it in a foreign port, and breathes a prayer 
that the flag of Italy may sometime insure to Italians that 
liberty which the flag of America guarantees to Americans. 
The liberty loving German, loving liberty for himself, and 
all the world beside, who loaned us money by buying our 
bonds in the dark days of treason, now points to our banner 
as the fulfillment of his prophecy, that those who fight for 
liberty will win the battle. The poor Frenchman, when he 



19 

looks around him and beholds the ruin and desolation of his 
fair vine-clad France, ruined by that despotism which has 
hurled its curses upon the people from a French throne, remem- 
bers La Fayette, looks upon our bright banner and hopes his 
France will some day yet be free. The lovers of liberty in 
Spain point to our banner, and shout for a Government like ours. 

And the people of Canada, and of Cuba — the queen of the 
Antillas, standing away out amid the dashing waves of the 
Atlantic, and San Domingo and all the Islands on the American 
Continent are even now wishing for the time when they 
can call our flag their own. And who shall hinder them? 
Who shall stand in the way of the march of our manifest 
destiny ? Who shall be so unreasonable as to say these coun- 
tries and these islands which are even now either trembling 
within the grasp of monarchs, or being crushed out by the heel 
of despotism, you shall not become a part of us? I trust none. 

Ten long years have passed since the second war in this 
land waged for the rights of freemen burst upon the country, 
and those ten years are crowded full of the most glorious 
memories of our national life, and the most touching, sweetest 
and saddest memories that our hearts cherish. The dead are 
gathered to their long homes. We kneel by their graves and 
utter a prayer for their spirits fled. We plant above their clay 
the willow and the laurel, and we feel that blood like this 

" For liberty shed so holy i« 

It would not stain the purest rill, 
That sparkles among the bowers of bliss. 

Oh! if there be on this earthly sphere 
A boon, an offering Heaven holds dear, 

'Tis the last libation liberty draws 
From the heart that bleeds, and breaks in her cause." 

We, as citizens of this Republic nuist not forget that we 

have duties to perfarm — solemn, high, imperative duties. We 

must bear in mind that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. 

We must remain as faithful sentinels on the watch tower of 

freedom, guarding well the portals of liberty, ever bearing in 

mind that 

" Freedom's battles once begun, 

Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son, 
Though bafHed oft, is ever won." 



20 

We must keep before us the sacrifices of life, and blood, 
and treasure made by our ancestors when they laid broad and 
deep the foundations of our Government. We must not forget 
the noble deeds performed by the fair women and brave men 
for the defense of the Nation during the last great struggle for 
its existence, remembering 

" Tliat four hundred thousand men, 

The brave, the good, the true. 
In tangled wood, in mountain glen 

On battle plain and in prison pen. 
Lie dead for me and you." 

That there are thousands upon thousands of weeeping 
Rachels and mourning Jacobs who are only comforted because 
their sons died for the nation. We have but to do our duty 
as well as the friends of the Government have performed 
theirs in the past, and as well as those who braved the terorrs 
of the battle field in its defense in our day, and our career of 
glory and greatness is but in its infi\ncy. 

There are even yet dangers which beset our national path- 
way. They can be avoided by a correct and faithful perform- 
ance of our duty ; by vigilant and watchful care on the part 
of all good citizens. 

Then let us retire from the celebration of this, our ninety- 
fifth national birthday with renewed faith in our institutions, 
with a firm determination on our ])art that let come what will, 
no traitor hand shall ever again be laid upon the Government 
which protects all alike ; which secures liberty to all, no matter 
whether it be the opulent and powerful, or the poor and lowly. 
That the mailed hand of power wielded by the whole American 
people will drag to j ustice any who may in the future dare to strike 
at the existence of the nation. Let us resolve to hasten that 
day when the nations "shall learn war no more," when the 
battle flags shall be furled ; when the sword shall be beaten 
into the scythe, and the cannon shall become the plowshare ; 
when the universal brotherhood of man shall be proclaimed " 
and recognized everywhere; when peace on earth and good 
will to men shall be the watchword among the nations; 
when 

" All crime shall cease and ancient fraud shall fail. 
Returning justice lift aloft her scale. 
Peace over the world lier olive wand extend, 
And white robed innocence from heaven descend. " 

When the universal world shall come to know that it cannot 
escape, if it would, obedience to the connnand of Him who 
hath said : " Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, and 
unto all the inhabitants thereof." 



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